Iv

The flood that swept her to be slave Adoring, under thought of being his mate, These were, and unto the visibly unexcelled, As much of heart as abjects can she gave, Or what of heart the body bears for freight When Majesty apparent overawes; By the flash of his ascending deeds upheld, Which let not feminine pride in him have pause To question where the nobler pride rebelled. She read the hieroglyphic on his brow, Felt his firm hand to wield the giant’s mace; Herself whirled upward in an eagle’s claws, Past recollection of her earthly place; And if cold Reason pressed her, called him Fate; Offering abashed the servile woman’s vow. Delirium was her virtue when the look At fettered wrists and violated laws Faith in a rectitude Supernal shook, Till worship of him shone as her last rational state, The slave’s apology for gemmed disgrace. Far in her mind that leap from earth to the ghost Midway on high; or felt as a troubled pool; Or as a broken sleep that hunts a dream half lost, Arrested and rebuked by the common school Of daily things for truancy. She could rejoice To know with wakeful eyeballs Violence Her crowned possessor, and, on every sense Incumbent, Fact, Imperial Fact, her choice, In scorn of barren visions, aims at a glassy void. Who sprang for Liberty once, found slavery sweet; And Tyranny, on alert subservience buoyed, Spurred a blood-mare immeasureably fleet To shoot the transient leagues in a passing wink, Prompt for the glorious bound at the fanged abyss’s brink. Scarce felt she that she bled when battle scored On riddled flags the further conjured line; From off the meteor gleam of his waved sword Reflected bright in permanence: she bled As the Bacchante spills her challengeing wine With whirl o’ the cup before the kiss to lip; And bade drudge History in his footprints tread, For pride of sword-strokes o’er slow penmanship: Each step of his a volume: his sharp word The shower of steel and lead Or pastoral sunshine.